Thanks. Nixon was a loathsome individual, but not a sociopath like Trump. When Nixon died, and they laid him out ion a bier near his home in California, my brother and I agreed that if we could have, we would have stood in the line of mourners, with a mallet and a stake.
Jon, actually, Trump is a psychopath, not a sociopath. Sociopaths have a conscience. Psychopaths lack empathy and remorse. They can cause death(s) and destruction and not care.
Eileen, at one time Trump was most likely a sociopath; however, the presidency itself has turned him into what appears to be a psychopath. Endorsing likeminded psychopaths in his cabinet to do his dirty work for him essentially proves the point. Messing with the environmental controls in this nation my well be a bridge too far for even him. However, at the same time, I'm not holding my breath that he may toy with, to the nation's detriment, on the environmental issues for this nation.
Eileen, good distinction! Trump likes to see the chaos and know that he has caused it, like January 6th, but he would not throw a punch unless without another way out. He does not want to be at risk, but wants to get others to do his dirty work, like many of the MAFIA dons he chooses to emulate. Nixon wouldn't have gotten involved directly either, but would certainly have sacrificed anyone who got in his way. Oh wait, he did sacrifice the guys who helped in the cover-up who got prison while he didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Trump does that even without thinking about it. Trump likes a regular peck on the butt from those he acknowledges and when they don't make it obvious enough, he will punish them. He wants to punish the whole country for trying to stand against him. If his cronies, the other toddler-adults don't make him king, he will be just soooo mad! I'm for making him mad!
Jon, I think you were both right and there is little distinction between the two. Sociopaths and psychopaths both exhibit antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and lack empathy, but they have different characteristics:
Sociopaths
Tend to be more impulsive and emotionally erratic. They may have difficulty controlling their emotions and may react violently when confronted with consequences. They may also have a weak ability to feel empathy and remorse.
Psychopaths
Tend to be more calculating and charming, and may be able to mask their true intentions. They may experience very little emotion and may have difficulty identifying emotional distress in others. They may also be able to follow social conventions when it suits their needs.
Other differences include:
Genetic, biological, and psychological bases: Psychopathy is thought to have genetic, biological, and psychological bases.
Social environment: Sociopathy's antisocial behaviors are thought to be the product of someone's social environment.
Self-control: Psychopaths may have more self-control than sociopaths.
Anxiety: Psychopaths may have low levels of anxiety.
Reactivity: Psychopaths may have low reactivity, meaning they don't react much to stress or punishment.
Hannah, you are so right but alas, American memories are short and rarely close to accurate. We should not forget that his Vice President Agnew was taking bribes in cash right in the White House and Nixon went right along with the Watergate cover-up, thinking he and they all could get away with it, except, maybe those careless break-in artists.
Rex-While I agree that Richard Nixon made significant progress on environmental issues, I disagree that he was a ‘decent’ human being. His political machinations alone put him in a similar category to Trump.
I don't think Nixon is nearly as bad as Trump. He did care for his family members, whereas I don't think Trump gives a damn about anyone except himself. Nixon cared about his wife enough to tell her, as he went off to fight in WWII, that if he were to be killed, she should marry again. Part of Nixon's problem was that he had lost two of four brothers during childhood, and part of it was nothing he could do would get him praise from his father.
Nixon cared about dogs that became part of his family. Trump doesn't care for family members, and he has never had a dog.
Your statements are justifications for limited acts which do not reflect the damage he did to our country and this country's relationships with other foreign countries. Nixon is NOT a good person because he is better than the psychopath. That is situational ethics and is not valid.
I think it's useful for people to know from whence his shortcomings arose. But he certainly did some truly rotten things, like interfering with efforts on either Johnson's or Humphrey's part (or may be both) to end the Vietnam war towards the end of the 1968 election season--which he did in order to prevent Humphrey from winning that election--thereby prolonging the Vietnam War, and the deaths of many tens of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. Your points are valid.
Nixon opened the door to communist China. No other political person could do that and survive, That was a very big thing. I care less about character than about performance. At least Nixon had items in both columns. DJT has only one column, it is labeled ME!
The biggest lesson, I hope, from the Trump 2.0 administration, will be that he can't do nearly as much damage to the country as he confidently proclaimed he would.
He might fancy himself a king, but he's not. Not even a king-elect.
Frankly, I think corporate media HAS been scared into obeying in advance. THAT, in itself is tragic.
When WE the PEOPLE do what we can, as much as we can, as often as we can, those individual acts of resistance WILL accumulate. Do not do as Bezos has done, or Zuckerberg, or ABC News.
You all make excellent points about Nixon and Trump. Thank you. And yes-we RESIST! No watching inauguration, and slowing economy on the 21st of January by spending nothing.
I’m just wondering, Jen, how many folks will be paid to be there as well as bussed in from far afield (some of that would be normal, I think). Would be good to know the inside scoop on those preparations. I can look, afterwards, at the pics of the crowd size. It’s going to be a loooonnnggg 4 years.
And there lies the isssue ~ Trump will not be running the country, the top 1% will. So, who do you complain to when eggs are $8.00 a dozen? Amazon? Elon? RFK? DOGE? There will be no centralized government to protect the 99%. Trump will be off on the golf course relishing on the fact he escaped justice again.
DJT has said, "Drill, Drill, Drill, Frack, Frack, Frack'... Fracking fractures the Bedrock, and the Water that is injected into the Well, becomes Poisonous... When Oil is found, the Yield is usually Short-Lived... The Bedrock becomes unstable... Oklahoma now has thousands of Micro-Quakes... Poisoning the Water was illegal until Dick Cheney got involved... Didn't DJT say to the Oil Companies that if they sent $1,000,000,000 to his Campaign that DJT would give then Carte Blanche?... Do You Think That DJT Cares About Our Future?
A small grassroots group of us - Catskill Citizens for Clean Energy - fought and fought fracking in upstate New York - with some success. It scares me that it will be encouraged under Trump.
Could we please "discover" oil, and then drill and frack on Mar-a-Lago land first? The water they use for fracking is waste water, full of chemical poisons, which they inject into the earth.
This destroys the land and water. Big Oil has huge reserves stored up of oil and gas they hold onto to keep the prices high. This has got to stop.
I am happy to discover a person whose standards for decency are even stricter than mine. In my judgement, anyone who voted for Trump is even worse, as a human being, than Nixon.
Neither conclusion, I think, will suffice to deal with his character, owing to its complexity. I wonder if any of his biographers have gotten to the bottom of it. He was indeed a very complicated man. Bright. Thoughtful though not necessarily in good ways. Outstanding student ....from Whittier College. Unexceptional Navy career in WWII. Liked dogs . And seemed always on the defensive no more so than when he reached the White House. Perhaps a good exemplar of what Hofstader called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". or more accurately, the real McCoy.
...And then there is this. He was from a "Society of Friends" family. And this: he first gained notoriety as a Joe McCarthy follower by using his position to amplify Whitaker Chamber's accusations of espionage leveled at Alger Hiss.
Has anyone here ever read "Witness". ? A curious book. Written after the fact by Chambers to cement his account of Hiss's duplicity by recounting the story of "the Pumpkin Papers" ,- microfilms supposedly left for him by Hiss in a pumpkin in a field in Delaware that Chambers led FBI agents to. And to cash in on it. As did Nixon in a different way.
Solid gold for an up and coming politician. But where did the typewriter go ? And get this: all three were Quakers. Per force we must conclude that there was at least one backstabber among them, this Quaker menage a trois, and more likely, two.
....But exceptionally hard to judge. So let us not conflate civic virtue with personal morality. Nixon was his own worst enemy. .And whatever he did achieve he did at his own expense. .
In addition to opening up China, Nixon appointed Nancy Hanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, and she increased its funding from $8 million to over $99 million during her 8-year tenure. It should surprise no one if during the next four years, the NEA holds bake sales to stay open.
A McCarthyeseque red baiter, and yet I saw fragments of decency that Trump and Tailgunner Joe seemed to totally lack. No exoneration for that, but see Nixon as a more complicated figure.
Very complicated -- all the way back to wearing a football jersey on his Wnittier CA High football Team No discipline back then & "Tricky" never mastered mature planning,
It was also Nixon and his FDA, HHS, and Sec of Ag, 😧 fearing inflation of the 70’s and the social upheaval of the 60’s took the steps to make food as cheap as possible. “ we will just add sugar to everything”, giving us dual epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes. These are decisions about staying in power, not keeping the people healthy and quality of life. And it’s still a policy today. Leadership and policy decisions have consequences for millions and lasts for generations. Nixon was a net negative with few positives.
I have yet to detect a shred of decency. Trump is the poster boy for malignant sociopathy, Weird how many link him with Jesus, but then there has always been a "dark side" to religion. Nixon was a red-baiting dirty trickster, but from what I could tell, environmentally responsible. Like Trump, Reagan tried to sabotage environmental protection.
Trump is both a malignant narcissist and sociopath. I foresee trouble ahead with Muskrat, who is also a malignant narcissist and sociopath. Trump will lose his current BFF if he thinks Muskrat is stepping in the attention Trump believes he is due.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call Nixon decent at his core. But he was pragmatic and seemed to be a patriot insofar as he wanted the best for the country.
Maybe. At least he did many good things and hus environment policies and initiatives saved countless lives in this country. As for the next occupant of the White House.....don't get me started....
Rex, I don’t know - on second thought - I do know that it is a bit unfair and not correct to say that any and every one who voted for trump is not a decent human being…a lot may just be misguided; and yes - ignorant of certain things like, how to make well thought out decisions (i.e., the basis for well thought out decisions are to make them based on facts, truths, not lies, false or misleading statements, misinformation, disinformation and conspiracies, etc.) and have an idea and/or some or do have a good deal of knowledge as to how to test the validity of their (and our) decisions. We have to try to minimize or ignore our prejudices, our preconceptions, hates and biases and try to make well balanced choices, decisions and judgments. [Somewhat easy to say - not necessarily easy to do!]. Remember, the reason FOXNews, OAN, and similar stations and news outlets and sources exist is to present an opposing view(s), viewpoints, perspectives and opinions…what many of them refer to as “alternative facts”!?!?!
TV has turned politics into a "reality show", more about titillation than societal outcomes. If a modern Lincoln and Douglas had a debate broadcast on TV, how many would watch it? To me, modern TV debates look more like game shows.
Cults nuts are attracted to carnival barkers selling bull Schitt. They can’t smell when they are wading up to their necks in it. The rest of us are reeling. Chump is Lady McBeth, out, out, damn spot. He knows that he is tainted and is trying to clean the spots so they won’t be remembered. Rupert has done one hell of a job but the picture in the attic is dark indeed. And it will emerge..,
Yours is a charitable view, Jim Riley, and good for you for holding it. I cannot agree because I think a vote for Trump was an unforgivable crime against humanity and that the white voters at least, who comprised the vast majority of Trump voters, were motivated to do so almost entirely by the Republican promise to do everything they can to preserve systemic white advantages in legal, political, and social opportunities. The obscenely wealthy have different motivations and are even worse, in a sense, but greed is not a primary factor in for 99% of white Trump voters.
Well, no--there was no decency at Nixon's core. Most actions of his that were for the public good were from public and political pressure. In and of himself his instincts were underhanded and illegal. He actually was a foul-mouthed CROOK.
I think it's wrong to denigrate Americans who voted for Trump. They are mostly decent people who were brought up in Republican/conservative surroundings of family and friends. They were betrayed by the criminals who hijacked the Republican party. They just don't know it yet. Thomas Hobbes wrote "H**l is the truth learned to late."
Rex, I am not sure at all about Nexon being a "decent human being at his core" or anywhere else. He was racist (the Southern Strategy and the Drug war, both intended to keep Black Americans down as far as he and his friends could push them), a warmonger who expanded the War in Vietnam instead of working to end it as he promised voters, and not especially supportive of any non-white groups. His assistance to Joe McCarthy was notable and he didn't seem to mind when innocent people were blacklisted because of his and McCarthy's efforts. He undermined the Vietnam peace talks which people didn't know about until long after his death, but President Johnson who knew about it thought it would look really bad for our country if he let the word out. I think those things ere his core. He did a couple of decent things like EPA and Title IX, but more due to extreme pressure when a river caught fire and cancer in toxic places was being reported at frightening levels. Trump is worse in so many ways, primarily due to his ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything positive, but they both share a core believe that they are supreme and should be permitted to do and say whatever they wish with impunity. Pardoning Nixon was a huge mistake and has made me see only that, when I hear President Ford's name.
I think one distinction is that Nixon did employ decent, capable people to advise him and make some of his accomplishments possible, and worked with a largely bipartisan Congress. And looking back, his Supreme Court was positively progressive compared with the one we have now.
Judging from the Trump 2.0 proposed lineup, that ain't gonna happen this time.
(From the 1st administration in "Donald's Vanity Tantrums" And that was a training period)
Beam Me Up, Scotty: Scott Pruitt's "New Agency for Holistic Standards Through Unobstructed Pollution" (formerly the Environmental Protection Agency)
If anyone gets into trouble in the Trump administration, just wait a few days until someone else gets into more trouble! A new disaster always comes waltzing in to take center stage and nudge out the current intolerable mess. Trump hops from one fiasco to another so the firing of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will not be a matter of concern for long.
Syrian bombing missions take the limelight off excessive personal spending habits of EPA director Scott Pruitt.
The Trump EPA has painfully become a dysfunctional shell of what it was. Science and research have been sidelined and global warming is called a figment of wild imagination. The already minuscule budget has been slashed by 30 percent, making enforcement actions impossible. Superfund enforcement (requiring polluters to clean up their toxic spills) has been reduced to the current interest rate.
The new EPA lost 700 employees. The House Appropriations Committee approved $31 million for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) to buy out contracts of existing staff. Now the polluters are running the show. A mining operation in Alaska's Bristol Bay goes forward after being blocked. One oil leak could destroy the largest sockeye salmon resources in the world. No more banning toxic pesticides, or more requirements for companies to disclose hazardous chemical inventories.
Welcome the return of smog, bigger and more profitable Trump Smog – coal ash, mining waste, benzene and mercury pollution. Get your oxygen tank and face masks out. Invest in air purifiers and carbon filters.
It’s profit at any cost. Fossil fuel is Trump’s renewable energy. Dirty energy industry lobbyists and CEOs are the new guards at the American power and utility gates.
"He's a fantastic person. I just left coal and energy country. They love Pruitt. They feel very strongly about Pruitt, and they love Pruitt,” Trump gloats.
Normally, this kind of accolade is a prelude to being fired. But normalcy doesn't thrive in this Trumpian era. Scott Pruitt resigned for using government funds on himself and his wife.
May God bless his little-soundproof-Chick-Fil-A-wifey-used-Trump-Hotel-mattress-cheap-rent-condo heart.
Bill, I have a good friend who worked in the EPA for many years prior to Trump's 2016 administration and she eventually quit simple because she was not allowed to do her job. Many other talented staff were stymied and discouraged and eventually as they were able to find other employment packed up and left.
I am not looking forward to "round 2" in disrespecting the health of the nation's citizens, the degradation of the environment, and the poisoning of American wildlife in the next four years. Of course there will be consequences but they will be disproportionately felt by poor and middle class families.
The most disturbing consequence however will be the failure to address climate change and as the oil industry powers up to drill baby drill the unrelenting heating will continue to burn baby burn. But we will see crop failures which will drive up the cost of food and as ecosystems fail and sea levels rise the economy will take a nose dive as displaced people struggle to find housing and ports that use to function fail.
We are that close to the tipping point that if progress on reducing emissions stalls we could very well find the efforts we are capable of will not arrest the warming trend. We don't have to imagine how this plays out. Just recall recent history in the middle east.
So, whether or not Nixon was as bad as Trump or not is a mote question. We are already in the middle of the 6th great extinction event and we may be unwittingly cutting the limb on which we're sitting as a species. There are ways to resist the likely policies of the coming Trump administration but they will require citizen focus and group actions like strikes and protests and boycotts to convince corporations that we the people will not go quietly to the dismal consequences they refuse in their greed to acknowledge.
Can we just say straight out that Trump and his minions absolutely do not care if we live or die. We are nothing but commodities to be plundered in their eyes.
Jane, as long as they can make money from your essentials needs they’ll let you be a consumer. But you are correct, they don’t care about consumers Jane & Larry. Any consumer will do. It’s OK if they can disinform you, knowingly sell you dangerous or unhealthy products or degrade the environment in producing their products. Buyer beware!
Just one comment on one point: the oil industry is already at "drill baby drill" levels. They don't want to produce more supply than there is demand because that will cause prices and thus profits to drop. The problem will be the reduced care which some contractors will take to avoid environmental damage will conducting surveying for oil, producing it, and delivering it to customers. Biden's administration never really restricted drilling and production because it couldn't because most of this activity occurs on private land. This will continue regardless of which administration is voted in.
Je, no argument there. We’re struggling with getting down to a one vehicle family and still can’t afford an EV(electric vehicle). They aren’t going to stop while the demand for gasoline is still high. My 2005 Prius gets good mileage but it still requires gas. I will get to a gas free transportation mode one way or another and soon.
Thank you Bill Katz - your investigative research provides transparency that all us HCR should send letters to our state & federal government. Can anyone here point us the way we can broadcast this…SINCE WE CANNOT COUNT ON OUR PRESS MEDIA TO DO TO THE INVESTIGATION OF HARMFUL ACTORS. #resist
Trump doesn't give a damn about anyone except for Trump. Nixon actually cared about his family, and had a few genuine friends. Which is not to say that he didn't have a lot of faults.
Trump never has given a damn about anyone or anything except himself and his bank account. I see comments on other sites from people who are convinced Trump will make things better. Fat chance, and I predict the first group of voters Trump will screw will be farmers, who will have no one to harvest their crops, and they won’t be able to sell their crops overseas because of tariffs.
It'll be interesting to see what DOGE does with the huge federal subsidies to the corn, soybean, and oil industries as they look across the government for wasteful spending. My bet?: nothing to Chuck Grassley's sacred farm subsidies. Nothing to Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott's sacred oil depletion allowances.
Yeah, Michael, even that bald eagle, the symbol of the United States, didn’t like him either! That vid of them is the perfect metaphor….the bird pecking at TFFFG indicating displeasure. We need a few more folks in the Republican Party with the smarts & daring of that bird!!!
That is exactly what concerns me, and many of us who would never vote for Trump and who know exactly what he is will be harmed along with Trump’s most fervent supporters. People will wind up broke, dead, or both.
Right on, Christopher. Hard to believe, but it tis true that compared to the Seditionist Sociopath and all of his soulless minions---starting with his VP in the pocket of Bond villain Peter Thiel---Richard Milhouse Nixon was the reincarnation of Thomas Paine.
That's bit too far for me. Nixon was an extremely complex man. At least he respected the Office of the Presidency enough to resign. Trump has zero respect for the Office -- or anything else.
And I am convinced he seriously has no intention of ever leaving office. Trump wants to emulate Putin and stay in office, and I seriously believe he will try to abuse his office and jail anyone he thinks is a political enemy.
I fear you are correct on both counts. My fear is that his mental instability will be used by others, e.g., Musk, Thiel, et alia, to seize control of the government.
Not so sure that Nixon “respected” the presidency. The GOP had not yet degraded into the depths of its current foul MAGA indecency, and its leaders would not tolerate criminal behavior by Nixon. He was forced to resign. The formerly somewhat moral GOP would not tolerate Trump’s personal or policy misbehaviors. The current GQP is so morally bankrupt that they will cheer on any level of horrible destruction, so long as it advances their crude culture war.
He respected it enough to not try a coup like someone we know. He respected it enough to accept the judgement of the Republicans who told him he would be impeached if he didn't resign.
Well....I am writing what you know already, what we all know but some dare not to say - Trump is a madman; he has been mad for years, and many people in important positions have sworn loyalty to a madman. And every year will be more dangerous. I think we have seen the birth of dark times. For Trump - l'etat c'est moi!
No nostalgia for Nixon or Ford, but I share the sentiment Ford expressed that “Nothing is more essential to the life of every single American than clean air, pure food, and safe drinking water.” I could add safety from violence and safe shelter.
Yeah, Nixon, like all the previous president going back to the 19th century, knew where his political bread was buttered. He was more active than most of his predecessors when it came to signing into law policies that improved the life of "We The People". Check this out: https://www.nixonfoundation.org/richard-nixons-top-domestic-and-foreign-policy-achievements/ Back then, I was overjoyed when he (and Agnew) had to leave office in disgrace but it took me a long while to understand how pervasive progressive policies were for politicians both Dems and repugs. Progressivism got you elected...until Reagan. Reagan's administration was more corrupt than Nixon's and he got away with all of it, became a frickin hero to the right and got this whole shitaree we are living through now. Of course, Reagan was an empty suit but in the eight years in office, his administration managed to turn this country on its head. Nixon engenders nostalgia for progressivism and for justice.
It is strange to think of Nixon in this light but his religion carried a sense of stewardship…a Quaker. And while we still face a horror of unbridled/unregulated (like the militia) capitalism, we have also benefited from a wide variety of health and safety laws, and that version of conservatism, in our caring for our environment (think being able to breath in cities). The clean water act was powerful, yet not enough! And then the supremes, scientists all, decided that laws and regulators weren’t the answer; ignorant judges were. If they had a ready-hired ‘science’ court of judges that were experts, maybe that would work. But when one of their own decided that wetlands only existed where you could ‘see’ the flow, throwing hydrology out the window, he put the ‘I’m with stupid’ stamp on all his decisions! The injustices reigned…again. Corporate peoplehood, money is speech, many serious mistakes, yet like resting on the shoulders of Roe v Wade, Congress refuses to react! We need clear laws! We need clear actions! If you don’t do the jobs send them home.
It a strange time that I have a nostalgia for Richard Nixon. That’s how bad our current situation is. Thanks Heather.
Nixon had plenty of faults but at core was a decent human being. Trump isn’t, and neither is anyone who voted for Trump.
My dad worked for him. He was not a decent human. He was a crook and employed thugs to do his dirty work. Not just Watergate.
Thanks. Nixon was a loathsome individual, but not a sociopath like Trump. When Nixon died, and they laid him out ion a bier near his home in California, my brother and I agreed that if we could have, we would have stood in the line of mourners, with a mallet and a stake.
Jon, actually, Trump is a psychopath, not a sociopath. Sociopaths have a conscience. Psychopaths lack empathy and remorse. They can cause death(s) and destruction and not care.
Eileen, at one time Trump was most likely a sociopath; however, the presidency itself has turned him into what appears to be a psychopath. Endorsing likeminded psychopaths in his cabinet to do his dirty work for him essentially proves the point. Messing with the environmental controls in this nation my well be a bridge too far for even him. However, at the same time, I'm not holding my breath that he may toy with, to the nation's detriment, on the environmental issues for this nation.
Eileen, good distinction! Trump likes to see the chaos and know that he has caused it, like January 6th, but he would not throw a punch unless without another way out. He does not want to be at risk, but wants to get others to do his dirty work, like many of the MAFIA dons he chooses to emulate. Nixon wouldn't have gotten involved directly either, but would certainly have sacrificed anyone who got in his way. Oh wait, he did sacrifice the guys who helped in the cover-up who got prison while he didn't even get a slap on the wrist. Trump does that even without thinking about it. Trump likes a regular peck on the butt from those he acknowledges and when they don't make it obvious enough, he will punish them. He wants to punish the whole country for trying to stand against him. If his cronies, the other toddler-adults don't make him king, he will be just soooo mad! I'm for making him mad!
Thanks for the correction!
Jon, I think you were both right and there is little distinction between the two. Sociopaths and psychopaths both exhibit antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) and lack empathy, but they have different characteristics:
Sociopaths
Tend to be more impulsive and emotionally erratic. They may have difficulty controlling their emotions and may react violently when confronted with consequences. They may also have a weak ability to feel empathy and remorse.
Psychopaths
Tend to be more calculating and charming, and may be able to mask their true intentions. They may experience very little emotion and may have difficulty identifying emotional distress in others. They may also be able to follow social conventions when it suits their needs.
Other differences include:
Genetic, biological, and psychological bases: Psychopathy is thought to have genetic, biological, and psychological bases.
Social environment: Sociopathy's antisocial behaviors are thought to be the product of someone's social environment.
Self-control: Psychopaths may have more self-control than sociopaths.
Anxiety: Psychopaths may have low levels of anxiety.
Reactivity: Psychopaths may have low reactivity, meaning they don't react much to stress or punishment.
Actually, it is part of a psychopath’s pathology that they destroy everything around them. Check out Dr. Bandy Lee.
Thanks
Hannah, you are so right but alas, American memories are short and rarely close to accurate. We should not forget that his Vice President Agnew was taking bribes in cash right in the White House and Nixon went right along with the Watergate cover-up, thinking he and they all could get away with it, except, maybe those careless break-in artists.
Rex-While I agree that Richard Nixon made significant progress on environmental issues, I disagree that he was a ‘decent’ human being. His political machinations alone put him in a similar category to Trump.
I don't think Nixon is nearly as bad as Trump. He did care for his family members, whereas I don't think Trump gives a damn about anyone except himself. Nixon cared about his wife enough to tell her, as he went off to fight in WWII, that if he were to be killed, she should marry again. Part of Nixon's problem was that he had lost two of four brothers during childhood, and part of it was nothing he could do would get him praise from his father.
Nixon cared about dogs that became part of his family. Trump doesn't care for family members, and he has never had a dog.
The only dog "K9, as they call them" ever photographed with Trump, went and sat down beside Pence, occasionally licking his hand.
That’s perfect. They’re so intuitive!
Dogs coevolved with us for thousands of years. It's not surprising they understand us so well!
“The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven not man's.”
Mark Twain.
Your statements are justifications for limited acts which do not reflect the damage he did to our country and this country's relationships with other foreign countries. Nixon is NOT a good person because he is better than the psychopath. That is situational ethics and is not valid.
I think it's useful for people to know from whence his shortcomings arose. But he certainly did some truly rotten things, like interfering with efforts on either Johnson's or Humphrey's part (or may be both) to end the Vietnam war towards the end of the 1968 election season--which he did in order to prevent Humphrey from winning that election--thereby prolonging the Vietnam War, and the deaths of many tens of thousands of Americans and Vietnamese. Your points are valid.
And he used deleted expletives. His secretary's loyalty never wavered. She lied for him.
I hate him for that most of all, the Vietnam Memorial should say that.
And no self respecting dog would have Trump.
No self respecting person should have voted for him.
Nixon opened the door to communist China. No other political person could do that and survive, That was a very big thing. I care less about character than about performance. At least Nixon had items in both columns. DJT has only one column, it is labeled ME!
When Nixon screwed LBJ on a peace deal for Viet Nam, he wallowed in blood and loved it
So many of us suffer trauma, leaving scars for others to deal with. Some pass their damage on in ways that affect millions
Wisdom
The ultimate evil, to me
Even Hitler loved dogs. Unfortunately, loving dogs is not a guarantee of being a good person. Not even close.
J, what to say about trump? This guy doesn't even likes dogs or cats or anything...other than money
Not it's not.
Trump makes Nixon look like a Boy Scout! At least Tricky Dick did some good, Trump is poised to destroy all of it.
The biggest lesson, I hope, from the Trump 2.0 administration, will be that he can't do nearly as much damage to the country as he confidently proclaimed he would.
He might fancy himself a king, but he's not. Not even a king-elect.
Frankly, I think corporate media HAS been scared into obeying in advance. THAT, in itself is tragic.
When WE the PEOPLE do what we can, as much as we can, as often as we can, those individual acts of resistance WILL accumulate. Do not do as Bezos has done, or Zuckerberg, or ABC News.
#Resist
You all make excellent points about Nixon and Trump. Thank you. And yes-we RESIST! No watching inauguration, and slowing economy on the 21st of January by spending nothing.
I’m just wondering, Jen, how many folks will be paid to be there as well as bussed in from far afield (some of that would be normal, I think). Would be good to know the inside scoop on those preparations. I can look, afterwards, at the pics of the crowd size. It’s going to be a loooonnnggg 4 years.
I am going into full media black out on January 20th. I could not bear to watch that.
If everyone boycotted Amazon and Tesla just for 1 day, that would send a very loud message.
And there lies the isssue ~ Trump will not be running the country, the top 1% will. So, who do you complain to when eggs are $8.00 a dozen? Amazon? Elon? RFK? DOGE? There will be no centralized government to protect the 99%. Trump will be off on the golf course relishing on the fact he escaped justice again.
Trump is accountable for inflation, stock market and unemployment rate. The three key watch instruments.
! ! !
Billionaires worry more about losing money than losing their souls.
DJT has said, "Drill, Drill, Drill, Frack, Frack, Frack'... Fracking fractures the Bedrock, and the Water that is injected into the Well, becomes Poisonous... When Oil is found, the Yield is usually Short-Lived... The Bedrock becomes unstable... Oklahoma now has thousands of Micro-Quakes... Poisoning the Water was illegal until Dick Cheney got involved... Didn't DJT say to the Oil Companies that if they sent $1,000,000,000 to his Campaign that DJT would give then Carte Blanche?... Do You Think That DJT Cares About Our Future?
A small grassroots group of us - Catskill Citizens for Clean Energy - fought and fought fracking in upstate New York - with some success. It scares me that it will be encouraged under Trump.
Fracking will probably be back on the agenda if a Republican replaces the unpopular Kathy Hochul as New York's governor, too. 😞
Could we please "discover" oil, and then drill and frack on Mar-a-Lago land first? The water they use for fracking is waste water, full of chemical poisons, which they inject into the earth.
This destroys the land and water. Big Oil has huge reserves stored up of oil and gas they hold onto to keep the prices high. This has got to stop.
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Vile but not that vile; though vile enough that there would have been enough Republican votes to convict him had he not resigned.
There is no similar category to Trump. He stands alone in history for depravity.
I am happy to discover a person whose standards for decency are even stricter than mine. In my judgement, anyone who voted for Trump is even worse, as a human being, than Nixon.
Neither conclusion, I think, will suffice to deal with his character, owing to its complexity. I wonder if any of his biographers have gotten to the bottom of it. He was indeed a very complicated man. Bright. Thoughtful though not necessarily in good ways. Outstanding student ....from Whittier College. Unexceptional Navy career in WWII. Liked dogs . And seemed always on the defensive no more so than when he reached the White House. Perhaps a good exemplar of what Hofstader called "The Paranoid Style in American Politics". or more accurately, the real McCoy.
...And then there is this. He was from a "Society of Friends" family. And this: he first gained notoriety as a Joe McCarthy follower by using his position to amplify Whitaker Chamber's accusations of espionage leveled at Alger Hiss.
Has anyone here ever read "Witness". ? A curious book. Written after the fact by Chambers to cement his account of Hiss's duplicity by recounting the story of "the Pumpkin Papers" ,- microfilms supposedly left for him by Hiss in a pumpkin in a field in Delaware that Chambers led FBI agents to. And to cash in on it. As did Nixon in a different way.
Solid gold for an up and coming politician. But where did the typewriter go ? And get this: all three were Quakers. Per force we must conclude that there was at least one backstabber among them, this Quaker menage a trois, and more likely, two.
....But exceptionally hard to judge. So let us not conflate civic virtue with personal morality. Nixon was his own worst enemy. .And whatever he did achieve he did at his own expense. .
You've just told me a couple of things I didn't know. Arthur Miller knew them. There's a line from "The Crucible": "What, are we Quakers here?"
https://www.arts.gov › about › what-is-the-nea › nancy-hanks-1969-77.
In addition to opening up China, Nixon appointed Nancy Hanks to the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities, and she increased its funding from $8 million to over $99 million during her 8-year tenure. It should surprise no one if during the next four years, the NEA holds bake sales to stay open.
exactly - taking shared costs and turning it to your costs.
Nixon most certainly was not a decent human being at his core. He engaged in decades of deception, fraud and was a pathological liar!
Nixon's sins circa 1948 go back to his first Congressional election & his "dirty tricks" against the actress, Helen Douglas,
A McCarthyeseque red baiter, and yet I saw fragments of decency that Trump and Tailgunner Joe seemed to totally lack. No exoneration for that, but see Nixon as a more complicated figure.
Very complicated -- all the way back to wearing a football jersey on his Wnittier CA High football Team No discipline back then & "Tricky" never mastered mature planning,
It was also Nixon and his FDA, HHS, and Sec of Ag, 😧 fearing inflation of the 70’s and the social upheaval of the 60’s took the steps to make food as cheap as possible. “ we will just add sugar to everything”, giving us dual epidemics of childhood obesity and diabetes. These are decisions about staying in power, not keeping the people healthy and quality of life. And it’s still a policy today. Leadership and policy decisions have consequences for millions and lasts for generations. Nixon was a net negative with few positives.
Sabrina,your comment sounds like familiar 🤔
I have yet to detect a shred of decency. Trump is the poster boy for malignant sociopathy, Weird how many link him with Jesus, but then there has always been a "dark side" to religion. Nixon was a red-baiting dirty trickster, but from what I could tell, environmentally responsible. Like Trump, Reagan tried to sabotage environmental protection.
Trump is both a malignant narcissist and sociopath. I foresee trouble ahead with Muskrat, who is also a malignant narcissist and sociopath. Trump will lose his current BFF if he thinks Muskrat is stepping in the attention Trump believes he is due.
I wouldn’t go so far as to call Nixon decent at his core. But he was pragmatic and seemed to be a patriot insofar as he wanted the best for the country.
Maybe. At least he did many good things and hus environment policies and initiatives saved countless lives in this country. As for the next occupant of the White House.....don't get me started....
I agree that Nixon was good on the environment, which I view as an expression of his pragmatism.
Rex, I don’t know - on second thought - I do know that it is a bit unfair and not correct to say that any and every one who voted for trump is not a decent human being…a lot may just be misguided; and yes - ignorant of certain things like, how to make well thought out decisions (i.e., the basis for well thought out decisions are to make them based on facts, truths, not lies, false or misleading statements, misinformation, disinformation and conspiracies, etc.) and have an idea and/or some or do have a good deal of knowledge as to how to test the validity of their (and our) decisions. We have to try to minimize or ignore our prejudices, our preconceptions, hates and biases and try to make well balanced choices, decisions and judgments. [Somewhat easy to say - not necessarily easy to do!]. Remember, the reason FOXNews, OAN, and similar stations and news outlets and sources exist is to present an opposing view(s), viewpoints, perspectives and opinions…what many of them refer to as “alternative facts”!?!?!
TV has turned politics into a "reality show", more about titillation than societal outcomes. If a modern Lincoln and Douglas had a debate broadcast on TV, how many would watch it? To me, modern TV debates look more like game shows.
They are unfunny jokes
Cults nuts are attracted to carnival barkers selling bull Schitt. They can’t smell when they are wading up to their necks in it. The rest of us are reeling. Chump is Lady McBeth, out, out, damn spot. He knows that he is tainted and is trying to clean the spots so they won’t be remembered. Rupert has done one hell of a job but the picture in the attic is dark indeed. And it will emerge..,
Many? I thought Mrs Conway made so many people laugh at that, that nobody else would use it except in mockery.
Yours is a charitable view, Jim Riley, and good for you for holding it. I cannot agree because I think a vote for Trump was an unforgivable crime against humanity and that the white voters at least, who comprised the vast majority of Trump voters, were motivated to do so almost entirely by the Republican promise to do everything they can to preserve systemic white advantages in legal, political, and social opportunities. The obscenely wealthy have different motivations and are even worse, in a sense, but greed is not a primary factor in for 99% of white Trump voters.
I'd like to disagree politely. He was a bigot and an antisemite.
Well, no--there was no decency at Nixon's core. Most actions of his that were for the public good were from public and political pressure. In and of himself his instincts were underhanded and illegal. He actually was a foul-mouthed CROOK.
I think it's wrong to denigrate Americans who voted for Trump. They are mostly decent people who were brought up in Republican/conservative surroundings of family and friends. They were betrayed by the criminals who hijacked the Republican party. They just don't know it yet. Thomas Hobbes wrote "H**l is the truth learned to late."
Rex, I am not sure at all about Nexon being a "decent human being at his core" or anywhere else. He was racist (the Southern Strategy and the Drug war, both intended to keep Black Americans down as far as he and his friends could push them), a warmonger who expanded the War in Vietnam instead of working to end it as he promised voters, and not especially supportive of any non-white groups. His assistance to Joe McCarthy was notable and he didn't seem to mind when innocent people were blacklisted because of his and McCarthy's efforts. He undermined the Vietnam peace talks which people didn't know about until long after his death, but President Johnson who knew about it thought it would look really bad for our country if he let the word out. I think those things ere his core. He did a couple of decent things like EPA and Title IX, but more due to extreme pressure when a river caught fire and cancer in toxic places was being reported at frightening levels. Trump is worse in so many ways, primarily due to his ignorance and unwillingness to learn anything positive, but they both share a core believe that they are supreme and should be permitted to do and say whatever they wish with impunity. Pardoning Nixon was a huge mistake and has made me see only that, when I hear President Ford's name.
I think one distinction is that Nixon did employ decent, capable people to advise him and make some of his accomplishments possible, and worked with a largely bipartisan Congress. And looking back, his Supreme Court was positively progressive compared with the one we have now.
Judging from the Trump 2.0 proposed lineup, that ain't gonna happen this time.
You lost the election. Grow a pair an accept it.
Even better you are aren't better than the people who voted for Trump.
America is sick of leftist virtue signaling.
You lost because America got tired on Democratic policies and elites giving the middle class the middle finger.
(From the 1st administration in "Donald's Vanity Tantrums" And that was a training period)
Beam Me Up, Scotty: Scott Pruitt's "New Agency for Holistic Standards Through Unobstructed Pollution" (formerly the Environmental Protection Agency)
If anyone gets into trouble in the Trump administration, just wait a few days until someone else gets into more trouble! A new disaster always comes waltzing in to take center stage and nudge out the current intolerable mess. Trump hops from one fiasco to another so the firing of Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt will not be a matter of concern for long.
Syrian bombing missions take the limelight off excessive personal spending habits of EPA director Scott Pruitt.
The Trump EPA has painfully become a dysfunctional shell of what it was. Science and research have been sidelined and global warming is called a figment of wild imagination. The already minuscule budget has been slashed by 30 percent, making enforcement actions impossible. Superfund enforcement (requiring polluters to clean up their toxic spills) has been reduced to the current interest rate.
The new EPA lost 700 employees. The House Appropriations Committee approved $31 million for Voluntary Early Retirement Authority (VERA) and Voluntary Separation Incentive Payments (VSIP) to buy out contracts of existing staff. Now the polluters are running the show. A mining operation in Alaska's Bristol Bay goes forward after being blocked. One oil leak could destroy the largest sockeye salmon resources in the world. No more banning toxic pesticides, or more requirements for companies to disclose hazardous chemical inventories.
Welcome the return of smog, bigger and more profitable Trump Smog – coal ash, mining waste, benzene and mercury pollution. Get your oxygen tank and face masks out. Invest in air purifiers and carbon filters.
It’s profit at any cost. Fossil fuel is Trump’s renewable energy. Dirty energy industry lobbyists and CEOs are the new guards at the American power and utility gates.
"He's a fantastic person. I just left coal and energy country. They love Pruitt. They feel very strongly about Pruitt, and they love Pruitt,” Trump gloats.
Normally, this kind of accolade is a prelude to being fired. But normalcy doesn't thrive in this Trumpian era. Scott Pruitt resigned for using government funds on himself and his wife.
May God bless his little-soundproof-Chick-Fil-A-wifey-used-Trump-Hotel-mattress-cheap-rent-condo heart.
Bill, I have a good friend who worked in the EPA for many years prior to Trump's 2016 administration and she eventually quit simple because she was not allowed to do her job. Many other talented staff were stymied and discouraged and eventually as they were able to find other employment packed up and left.
I am not looking forward to "round 2" in disrespecting the health of the nation's citizens, the degradation of the environment, and the poisoning of American wildlife in the next four years. Of course there will be consequences but they will be disproportionately felt by poor and middle class families.
The most disturbing consequence however will be the failure to address climate change and as the oil industry powers up to drill baby drill the unrelenting heating will continue to burn baby burn. But we will see crop failures which will drive up the cost of food and as ecosystems fail and sea levels rise the economy will take a nose dive as displaced people struggle to find housing and ports that use to function fail.
We are that close to the tipping point that if progress on reducing emissions stalls we could very well find the efforts we are capable of will not arrest the warming trend. We don't have to imagine how this plays out. Just recall recent history in the middle east.
So, whether or not Nixon was as bad as Trump or not is a mote question. We are already in the middle of the 6th great extinction event and we may be unwittingly cutting the limb on which we're sitting as a species. There are ways to resist the likely policies of the coming Trump administration but they will require citizen focus and group actions like strikes and protests and boycotts to convince corporations that we the people will not go quietly to the dismal consequences they refuse in their greed to acknowledge.
With the next 4 years coming into focus I see great health problems. We are as a civilization coming to a close.
Can you elaborate a little on that, Chris? I’m interested.
Can we just say straight out that Trump and his minions absolutely do not care if we live or die. We are nothing but commodities to be plundered in their eyes.
Jane, as long as they can make money from your essentials needs they’ll let you be a consumer. But you are correct, they don’t care about consumers Jane & Larry. Any consumer will do. It’s OK if they can disinform you, knowingly sell you dangerous or unhealthy products or degrade the environment in producing their products. Buyer beware!
Just one comment on one point: the oil industry is already at "drill baby drill" levels. They don't want to produce more supply than there is demand because that will cause prices and thus profits to drop. The problem will be the reduced care which some contractors will take to avoid environmental damage will conducting surveying for oil, producing it, and delivering it to customers. Biden's administration never really restricted drilling and production because it couldn't because most of this activity occurs on private land. This will continue regardless of which administration is voted in.
Je, no argument there. We’re struggling with getting down to a one vehicle family and still can’t afford an EV(electric vehicle). They aren’t going to stop while the demand for gasoline is still high. My 2005 Prius gets good mileage but it still requires gas. I will get to a gas free transportation mode one way or another and soon.
Tell that to the media as well
Katrina, please feel free to copy whatever you want from this discussion and share it with whatever media outlets you want.
Thank you Bill Katz - your investigative research provides transparency that all us HCR should send letters to our state & federal government. Can anyone here point us the way we can broadcast this…SINCE WE CANNOT COUNT ON OUR PRESS MEDIA TO DO TO THE INVESTIGATION OF HARMFUL ACTORS. #resist
This is one reason I support ProPublica. They are doing the investigative work that the MSM ignores.
Check out indivisible.org. There will probably be a local chapter near you.
I did. 👍
Right around when GW Bush launched his war of choice against Iraq, I saw a telling bumper sticker that said I NEVER THOUGHT I’D MISS NIXON.
Trump doesn't give a damn about anyone except for Trump. Nixon actually cared about his family, and had a few genuine friends. Which is not to say that he didn't have a lot of faults.
Trump never has given a damn about anyone or anything except himself and his bank account. I see comments on other sites from people who are convinced Trump will make things better. Fat chance, and I predict the first group of voters Trump will screw will be farmers, who will have no one to harvest their crops, and they won’t be able to sell their crops overseas because of tariffs.
And in MT , the Megas voted out the Senator who is a farmer
It'll be interesting to see what DOGE does with the huge federal subsidies to the corn, soybean, and oil industries as they look across the government for wasteful spending. My bet?: nothing to Chuck Grassley's sacred farm subsidies. Nothing to Ted Cruz and Greg Abbott's sacred oil depletion allowances.
Strange indeed. At least Nixon had a dog. I don't think any dog would even tolerate Trump.
Yeah, Michael, even that bald eagle, the symbol of the United States, didn’t like him either! That vid of them is the perfect metaphor….the bird pecking at TFFFG indicating displeasure. We need a few more folks in the Republican Party with the smarts & daring of that bird!!!
A great peck, er, peek at the real Trump.
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Unfortunately, we will have to experience rock bottom before anybody wakes up....
That is exactly what concerns me, and many of us who would never vote for Trump and who know exactly what he is will be harmed along with Trump’s most fervent supporters. People will wind up broke, dead, or both.
Yeah, Kathy, we are all in this ship together…if it goes down, so do we all.
Which is why we must stay at general quarters from the gun deck to the galley all.
Exactly what I was hoping would happen to him. Actually having him locked up in prison would have sufficed….
Right on, Christopher. Hard to believe, but it tis true that compared to the Seditionist Sociopath and all of his soulless minions---starting with his VP in the pocket of Bond villain Peter Thiel---Richard Milhouse Nixon was the reincarnation of Thomas Paine.
That's bit too far for me. Nixon was an extremely complex man. At least he respected the Office of the Presidency enough to resign. Trump has zero respect for the Office -- or anything else.
And I am convinced he seriously has no intention of ever leaving office. Trump wants to emulate Putin and stay in office, and I seriously believe he will try to abuse his office and jail anyone he thinks is a political enemy.
I fear you are correct on both counts. My fear is that his mental instability will be used by others, e.g., Musk, Thiel, et alia, to seize control of the government.
And at least dogs liked Nixon. I am convinced that no one actually likes Trump. Fear certainly; affection, dubious.
No one adored Nixon. Way too many Americans adore Trump.
Not so sure that Nixon “respected” the presidency. The GOP had not yet degraded into the depths of its current foul MAGA indecency, and its leaders would not tolerate criminal behavior by Nixon. He was forced to resign. The formerly somewhat moral GOP would not tolerate Trump’s personal or policy misbehaviors. The current GQP is so morally bankrupt that they will cheer on any level of horrible destruction, so long as it advances their crude culture war.
He respected it enough to not try a coup like someone we know. He respected it enough to accept the judgement of the Republicans who told him he would be impeached if he didn't resign.
Back when republicans seemed almost sane.
my thoughts exactly
Well....I am writing what you know already, what we all know but some dare not to say - Trump is a madman; he has been mad for years, and many people in important positions have sworn loyalty to a madman. And every year will be more dangerous. I think we have seen the birth of dark times. For Trump - l'etat c'est moi!
No nostalgia for Nixon or Ford, but I share the sentiment Ford expressed that “Nothing is more essential to the life of every single American than clean air, pure food, and safe drinking water.” I could add safety from violence and safe shelter.
At least Nixon was good enough to go at the urging of many Republicans and did not return to politics.
#PublicHealthHaiku
Odd to be nostalgic /
But EPA was benefit /
Nixon's only "plus".
Ain’t it the truth!!
Yeah, Nixon, like all the previous president going back to the 19th century, knew where his political bread was buttered. He was more active than most of his predecessors when it came to signing into law policies that improved the life of "We The People". Check this out: https://www.nixonfoundation.org/richard-nixons-top-domestic-and-foreign-policy-achievements/ Back then, I was overjoyed when he (and Agnew) had to leave office in disgrace but it took me a long while to understand how pervasive progressive policies were for politicians both Dems and repugs. Progressivism got you elected...until Reagan. Reagan's administration was more corrupt than Nixon's and he got away with all of it, became a frickin hero to the right and got this whole shitaree we are living through now. Of course, Reagan was an empty suit but in the eight years in office, his administration managed to turn this country on its head. Nixon engenders nostalgia for progressivism and for justice.
It is strange to think of Nixon in this light but his religion carried a sense of stewardship…a Quaker. And while we still face a horror of unbridled/unregulated (like the militia) capitalism, we have also benefited from a wide variety of health and safety laws, and that version of conservatism, in our caring for our environment (think being able to breath in cities). The clean water act was powerful, yet not enough! And then the supremes, scientists all, decided that laws and regulators weren’t the answer; ignorant judges were. If they had a ready-hired ‘science’ court of judges that were experts, maybe that would work. But when one of their own decided that wetlands only existed where you could ‘see’ the flow, throwing hydrology out the window, he put the ‘I’m with stupid’ stamp on all his decisions! The injustices reigned…again. Corporate peoplehood, money is speech, many serious mistakes, yet like resting on the shoulders of Roe v Wade, Congress refuses to react! We need clear laws! We need clear actions! If you don’t do the jobs send them home.